Bolt Neighborhood Blog

Erica agreed to give us a rundown of her three days at the Summit of Awesome-- as you can tell, it was as promised.

My head is still spinning from three amazing, inspiring, whirlwind daysat the second annual Summit of Awesome at the Kennedy School in NEPortland on June 16, 17, and 18. The event was put on by Hello Craft, anon-profit dedicated to empowering small business owners and promotingthe benefits of buying handmade. Hello Craft described the summit as"part networking event, part business school, part workshops and allcrafty fun."

Each day's schedule was jam-packed with tough choices --not only were there several different (and all fantastic-sounding)learning sessions for each time slot, but there were also workshopswhere you could do some hands-on crafting, guided by crafty powerhouseslike the hilarious Mark Montano of the "Big Ass Book" series andPortland's own Susan Beal of West Coast Crafty.

I went to the needle felting workshop with JaimeChan, and I am now 100% addicted. Someone asaccident-prone as I am should probably avoid any activity that involvesa lot of stabbing motions with sharp objects, but I don't care! It'sworth a few puncture wounds when the end result is something as cute asthe felted bird I made during the 90-minute session. I didn't have timeto put wings on it (as one of the other workshop attendees said, thewings are implied) but it still looks kind of like a bird, which isamazing to me considering it started out as nothing more than a fewstrands of wispy fluff.

Aside from getting my craft on, I crammed my brainchock-full of useful business information, from how to avoid commononline marketing mistakes to legalities around starting a business,including the differences between setting up as a sole proprietor or anLLC. Caitlin Phillips from Rebound Designs led a killer session calledHow to Maximize Your Craft Show Sales, which was both and validatingand enlightening. I was able to pat myself on the back for alreadydoing some of the things she recommended, like including a businesscard with every item sold and not slinking to the back of your boothduring a show to read a book, but actually *gasp* talking to people whocome to your booth. I think the advice that really resonated with me(and was reiterated again and again by almost all of the speakers) wasaround goal setting. It's one thing to have lofty dreams of quittingyour day job and creating cute handmade goodness in your pajamas allday, but in order to be successful you need to have a clear idea of howyou define success for yourself, and set some actual achievablebenchmarks that will keep you moving toward your goals.

The summit was rounded out with several funnetworking events, including a tour of the Alberta Arts District, arowdy White Elephant craft swap, and a party at Land, Buy Olympia'sstore front on Mississippi Ave.